Twitter has just released the biannual transparency report, a compendium of government information requests, removal requests and copyright notices from the first half of the year. Among the most significant findings in the Twitter transparency report is a 46% increase in government requests for user information, revealing how governments are increasingly relying on social media to uncover the activities of their citizens.

The chart above demonstrates how government requests have increased consistently since Twitter began its transparency reports in 2012. “The continued rise may be attributed to Twitter’s ongoing international expansion, but also appears to follow the industry trend, Twitter states in the report. “As always, we continue to fight to provide notice to affected users when we’re not otherwise prohibited.”

Discussing the country-by-country breakdown, Twitter highlighted that a staggering majority of these requests come from the USA. The report states:

The continued rise may be attributed to Twitter’s ongoing international expansion, but also appears to follow the industry trend. As always, we continue to fight to provide notice to affected users when we’re not otherwise prohibited.

The report also shows a dramatic rise in the number of removals in the past year. There were 432 requests by governments to withhold or remove content, from a total of 31 countries. Government agencies in Turkey and France were the most prolific with takedown requests, ordering the removal of 186 and 108 tweets respectively.

Copyright notices also saw a dramatic rise, from 6,680 requests to 9,199. Surprisingly, a handful of companies- Remove Your Media, NetResult, Irdeto, Copyright Integrity and Ennovva- make up a quarter of all copyright notices. Remove Your Media was responsible for 12.2% alone.

The Author

Eileen McNulty

Eileen McNulty-Holmes is the Head of Content for Data Natives, Europe’s largest data science conference. For the past ten years, they have written, edited and strategised for companies and publications spanning tech, arts and culture. With a core focus in journalism and content, Eileen has also spoken at conferences, organised literary and art events, mentored others in journalism, and had their fiction and essays published in a range of publications. They are passionate about amplifying marginalised voices in their field (particularly those from the LGBTQ community), AI, and dressing like it’s still the ’80s